ARTICLES
IT’S A BIRD. IT'S A PLANE. NO, IT'S A MEXICAN!
Sept/Oct 2006, ColorLines
Dulce Pinzón is a photographer with a clear objective. She wants to challenge what is socially accepted and shift public consciousness.
Her recent series of photographs, The Real Story of the Superheroes, portrays Mexican immigrants at work dressed in the costumes of popular American and Mexican superheroes. Pinzón’s work is so timely that audiences may believe the project was conceived after the proposal of new immigration legislation drove immigrants to protest in the streets earlier this year. However the project began germinating after September 11, 2001 when the notion of “hero” was brought to the foreground of public conversations.
Pinzón, who like her subjects hails from Mexico, isn’t shy about the intersection of art and politics. At the end of an hour long interview on her photographs, she comments, “I thought we were going to talk more about politics.”
Her faint voice vibrates over the telephone line as she describes the Mexican president’s visit to New York City following the destruction of the Twin Towers. Vicente Fox publicly recognized the Mexican women whose husbands died on September 11; his vow was to help the widows as they grieved the loss of “Mexico’s heroes.” Unfortunately, action did not follow his public statement. Pinzón was again frustrated with the Mexican government’s inertia.
It is not a fluke that themes of immigration, race and identity consistently appear in her photographs. Pinzón, who now lives in Queens, New York, came to the United States in 1995 following the worst devaluation of Mexican currency in history. “There were so many limitations,” she recalls. She saw many Mexicans lose their life savings.
She arrived in the United States with a student visa to train as a photographer and stayed on with a tourist visa that did not allow her to work. Without proper documentation she was forced to earn a living as a waitress. She then worked as a labor organizer and an ESL instructor for a nonprofit organization before dedicating herself completely to her photography.
While working to help Latinos integrate into mainstream America, Pinzón experienced despair. “New immigrants can be absorbed but not at the current rate,” she says. Young, uneducated Mexicans come and accept jobs under terrible conditions. This lowers the standards the labor movement fought to establish, such as the 40-hour work week and minimum wage. But when people have children at home who are crying from hunger they do what is necessary. She is frustrated with the Mexican administration: “The people in power are stealing at all levels.” From this side of the border “we just have to get rid of Bush. Democrats need to wake up.” Both governments must work to regenerate the economy, she says.
Over the course of working to support her passion for photography, Pinzón met many Mexican immigrants whom she now incorporates into her photography. Minerva Valencia, a student in Pinzón’s ESL class who works as a daycare provider, posed for the Superhero series. The photo shows her dressed as Catwoman and taking care of two toddlers. Each portrait is accompanied by a caption underneath listing the person’s name, where they are from, what kind of work they do and how much money they send to Mexico. Róman Romero, who posed as the Green Lantern works as a night watchman and sends $800 every month to his family, which according to Pinzón is the equivalent of a doctor’s monthly income in Mexico.
The Mexican economy depends on the money received from its workers in the United States. “The amount of money they send is unbelievable,” says Pinzón. Remittances have provided Mexico with more revenue than oil for the past two years. Inversely, the U.S. economy depends on the labor of Mexican immigrants Adalberto Lara, who posed as El Chapulin Colorado (The Red Grasshopper), felt that the photograph validated his construction work. A Mexican immigrant in New York City, he sends $350 per week. “He felt recognized,” says Pinzón.“People saw the contribution he makes to his family, his community in Mexico and to this country.”
The message is clear in Pinzón’s work, and the audience response is positive. Her desire is to expand her exhibitions beyond big metropolitan cities, such as New York and Miami, where Americans are already exposed to immigrant communities. This year The Real Story of the Superheroes will show in New York City galleries, but Pinzón is just as enthusiastic about the presentation of her work at the Myers Gallery in Oklahoma next year. She also hopes her series appears in more public spaces similar to San Francisco’s La Galería de La Raza where passersby don’t have to pay admission to see Wonder Woman working at a laundry and Human Torch toiling as a cook.
Another goal of Pinzón is to show the photographs in public schools. Many children are ostracized because of their parents’ occupations, she says. Whether they are immigrants or first generation, Pinzón wants them to feel proud of what their parents do and where they come from.
“Comics are part of every child’s life, and I want them to have this positive association,” she says. Yet she challenges the fictional images of superheroes as white, skinny and handsome. To defy convention, for example, she chose an overweight chauffeur as Batman. “In real life, heroism doesn’t have to do with physical appearance.” When asked if her work reaches legislators and others in the U.S. government she responds, “Ay, you can only do so much.”
Since Pinzón focused her labor on this project in 2004, her life has changed dramatically; she now works irregular hours as a freelance photographer every single day. The effort at working a day job and doing her art paid off this year with a grant from the U.S. Foundation for the Arts.
Little by little, Pinzón makes new contacts and reaches wider audiences and she’s not discouraged. On the contrary, she believes in the power of her work because it is what she loves to do. “This is what I have to do,” she says. “If I don’t do it, who will do it?”
Dulce Pinzón is a photographer with a clear objective. She wants to challenge what is socially accepted and shift public consciousness.
Her recent series of photographs, The Real Story of the Superheroes, portrays Mexican immigrants at work dressed in the costumes of popular American and Mexican superheroes. Pinzón’s work is so timely that audiences may believe the project was conceived after the proposal of new immigration legislation drove immigrants to protest in the streets earlier this year. However the project began germinating after September 11, 2001 when the notion of “hero” was brought to the foreground of public conversations.
Pinzón, who like her subjects hails from Mexico, isn’t shy about the intersection of art and politics. At the end of an hour long interview on her photographs, she comments, “I thought we were going to talk more about politics.”
Her faint voice vibrates over the telephone line as she describes the Mexican president’s visit to New York City following the destruction of the Twin Towers. Vicente Fox publicly recognized the Mexican women whose husbands died on September 11; his vow was to help the widows as they grieved the loss of “Mexico’s heroes.” Unfortunately, action did not follow his public statement. Pinzón was again frustrated with the Mexican government’s inertia.
It is not a fluke that themes of immigration, race and identity consistently appear in her photographs. Pinzón, who now lives in Queens, New York, came to the United States in 1995 following the worst devaluation of Mexican currency in history. “There were so many limitations,” she recalls. She saw many Mexicans lose their life savings.
She arrived in the United States with a student visa to train as a photographer and stayed on with a tourist visa that did not allow her to work. Without proper documentation she was forced to earn a living as a waitress. She then worked as a labor organizer and an ESL instructor for a nonprofit organization before dedicating herself completely to her photography.
While working to help Latinos integrate into mainstream America, Pinzón experienced despair. “New immigrants can be absorbed but not at the current rate,” she says. Young, uneducated Mexicans come and accept jobs under terrible conditions. This lowers the standards the labor movement fought to establish, such as the 40-hour work week and minimum wage. But when people have children at home who are crying from hunger they do what is necessary. She is frustrated with the Mexican administration: “The people in power are stealing at all levels.” From this side of the border “we just have to get rid of Bush. Democrats need to wake up.” Both governments must work to regenerate the economy, she says.
Over the course of working to support her passion for photography, Pinzón met many Mexican immigrants whom she now incorporates into her photography. Minerva Valencia, a student in Pinzón’s ESL class who works as a daycare provider, posed for the Superhero series. The photo shows her dressed as Catwoman and taking care of two toddlers. Each portrait is accompanied by a caption underneath listing the person’s name, where they are from, what kind of work they do and how much money they send to Mexico. Róman Romero, who posed as the Green Lantern works as a night watchman and sends $800 every month to his family, which according to Pinzón is the equivalent of a doctor’s monthly income in Mexico.
The Mexican economy depends on the money received from its workers in the United States. “The amount of money they send is unbelievable,” says Pinzón. Remittances have provided Mexico with more revenue than oil for the past two years. Inversely, the U.S. economy depends on the labor of Mexican immigrants Adalberto Lara, who posed as El Chapulin Colorado (The Red Grasshopper), felt that the photograph validated his construction work. A Mexican immigrant in New York City, he sends $350 per week. “He felt recognized,” says Pinzón.“People saw the contribution he makes to his family, his community in Mexico and to this country.”
The message is clear in Pinzón’s work, and the audience response is positive. Her desire is to expand her exhibitions beyond big metropolitan cities, such as New York and Miami, where Americans are already exposed to immigrant communities. This year The Real Story of the Superheroes will show in New York City galleries, but Pinzón is just as enthusiastic about the presentation of her work at the Myers Gallery in Oklahoma next year. She also hopes her series appears in more public spaces similar to San Francisco’s La Galería de La Raza where passersby don’t have to pay admission to see Wonder Woman working at a laundry and Human Torch toiling as a cook.
Another goal of Pinzón is to show the photographs in public schools. Many children are ostracized because of their parents’ occupations, she says. Whether they are immigrants or first generation, Pinzón wants them to feel proud of what their parents do and where they come from.
“Comics are part of every child’s life, and I want them to have this positive association,” she says. Yet she challenges the fictional images of superheroes as white, skinny and handsome. To defy convention, for example, she chose an overweight chauffeur as Batman. “In real life, heroism doesn’t have to do with physical appearance.” When asked if her work reaches legislators and others in the U.S. government she responds, “Ay, you can only do so much.”
Since Pinzón focused her labor on this project in 2004, her life has changed dramatically; she now works irregular hours as a freelance photographer every single day. The effort at working a day job and doing her art paid off this year with a grant from the U.S. Foundation for the Arts.
Little by little, Pinzón makes new contacts and reaches wider audiences and she’s not discouraged. On the contrary, she believes in the power of her work because it is what she loves to do. “This is what I have to do,” she says. “If I don’t do it, who will do it?”
DOMINICANS COME TO HAITI’S AID
January 2010, ColorLines.com
As the world focuses on Haiti—sending donations and rescue workers—many stories are being played out. One of the strangest: the reaction of its next-door neighbor.
For decades, the relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic has been defined by tension, racism and the legacy of the 1937 massacre, when the Dominican government had close to 30,000 Haitians murdered. More recently, the weak economy in Haiti has forced many Haitians to migrate to the Dominican Republic, where they are given the lowest-paid jobs, earning as little as $6 a day, while facing a barrage of racial prejudice from Dominicans.
And yet, Dominicans are responding to the crisis, well, like the rest of the world—with compassion and aid.
A psychologist living in Santo Domingo had never spoken to her Haitian neighbors across the street, but the day after the earthquake she went to knock on their door and ask about their families. She also wanted to volunteer to help victims recover from post-traumatic stress disorder. She was certain Dominicans would help Haitians despite the history between the two countries. “This is a disaster. We have to help,” she said.
At the university, flyers with “Solidaridad” written in bold have called everyone to participate in relief efforts at every building entrance. The Dominican national paper, El Listín Diario has published images of caravans heading towards the border, and according to another newspaper, El Diario Libre, the Dominican government has sent eight mobile clinics, 10 mobile dining halls and 39 trucks filled with nonperishable food to Jimaní, which serves as a main thoroughfare to Haiti. The opinion sections of the papers have been filled with voices motivating Dominicans to help Haitians.
While these actions may be ordinary in other countries, they stand out in the Dominican Republic, which has fought with Haiti over the division of the island of Hispaniola since colonial times. Race has been a defining feature of the relationship between the two countries. The French, who ruled Haiti, owned as many as 500,000 slaves at one point, whereas the Spaniards owned 60,000, leading many Dominicans today to cite Europe as their cultural inheritance and depict Haitians as African and thereby undesirable.
The two countries have fought bitterly over the border that is ironically now the best entry point into Haiti for supplies from international aid organizations.
Haiti, which became the first Black republic in the Western hemisphere in 1804, invaded Santo Domingo in 1821 and ruled the island until Dominicans declared themselves to be an independent state in 1844. The two countries continued arguing over the border, though, and Rafael Trujillo, during his 30-year dictatorship as President, made it a priority of his foreign policy to stop the migration of Haitians into Dominican territory. When the border treaty didn’t do the job, he ordered his military officials in 1937 to kill all Haitians living in the Dominican Republic. Between 20,000 and 30,000 Haitian migrants were murdered.
Now, close to a million Haitians live in the Dominican Republic and face ongoing discrimination, both institutional and personal. A Dominican man who saw my travel guidebook Dominican Republic & Haiti, was outraged that the two countries were written about in one book. “Trujillo did not kill enough Haitians,” he said referring to the 1937 massacre.
Haitians continue migrating here because of larger institutional forces. They meet the labor demands of builders, miners and farmers, who are only willing to pay low wages—much like Mexican and other immigrant labor in the United States who meet the needs of American business owners.
Given the history and reality of racism in the Dominican Republic, why this sudden surge of solidarity? The refrain heard at NGO meetings and on the street: “They have been left with nothing.”
“When you see images of someone who has lost everything, you only see their humanity,” said one college student in Santo Domingo.
But there was little unity and cooperation during the 2008 hurricane season, when five tropical storms and hurricanes caused severe damage on both sides of the border. Some Dominicans explained that both countries had to pick up the pieces in their own territories after those hurricanes. Other Dominicans answered that they are uniting to help now because “It could have been us. We felt the tremor.” All agree that this earthquake caused the most devastating destruction they have seen in their lifetime.
“In times of crisis, you see who people really are in their response,” said a Dominican employee at the Canadian embassy. He, like many other Dominicans, has worked day and night since the earthquake hit to offer assistance.
It’s hard to imagine, however, that one earthquake, even one this devastating, has wiped out a hundred years of racial hatred, that Dominicans will no longer utter anti-Haitian remarks and that they will consider the commonalities they share with Haitians once the crisis is over.
There are also practical matters. The Dominican Republic is plagued by its own scarcity of resources. While the Dominican government is assisting Haiti with three generators, sectors of Santo Domingo spent the morning recently without electricity. (This article was written using an inverter powered by car batteries.) It seems likely that sooner rather than later Dominicans will be calling on their government to redirect resources back home.
And so, the real test of what has changed in the Dominican Republic will come when the worst of the crisis is over and the international spotlight is no longer on Haiti. Then Dominicans may discover that it shouldn’t take a tragedy to get past what separates us.
As the world focuses on Haiti—sending donations and rescue workers—many stories are being played out. One of the strangest: the reaction of its next-door neighbor.
For decades, the relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic has been defined by tension, racism and the legacy of the 1937 massacre, when the Dominican government had close to 30,000 Haitians murdered. More recently, the weak economy in Haiti has forced many Haitians to migrate to the Dominican Republic, where they are given the lowest-paid jobs, earning as little as $6 a day, while facing a barrage of racial prejudice from Dominicans.
And yet, Dominicans are responding to the crisis, well, like the rest of the world—with compassion and aid.
A psychologist living in Santo Domingo had never spoken to her Haitian neighbors across the street, but the day after the earthquake she went to knock on their door and ask about their families. She also wanted to volunteer to help victims recover from post-traumatic stress disorder. She was certain Dominicans would help Haitians despite the history between the two countries. “This is a disaster. We have to help,” she said.
At the university, flyers with “Solidaridad” written in bold have called everyone to participate in relief efforts at every building entrance. The Dominican national paper, El Listín Diario has published images of caravans heading towards the border, and according to another newspaper, El Diario Libre, the Dominican government has sent eight mobile clinics, 10 mobile dining halls and 39 trucks filled with nonperishable food to Jimaní, which serves as a main thoroughfare to Haiti. The opinion sections of the papers have been filled with voices motivating Dominicans to help Haitians.
While these actions may be ordinary in other countries, they stand out in the Dominican Republic, which has fought with Haiti over the division of the island of Hispaniola since colonial times. Race has been a defining feature of the relationship between the two countries. The French, who ruled Haiti, owned as many as 500,000 slaves at one point, whereas the Spaniards owned 60,000, leading many Dominicans today to cite Europe as their cultural inheritance and depict Haitians as African and thereby undesirable.
The two countries have fought bitterly over the border that is ironically now the best entry point into Haiti for supplies from international aid organizations.
Haiti, which became the first Black republic in the Western hemisphere in 1804, invaded Santo Domingo in 1821 and ruled the island until Dominicans declared themselves to be an independent state in 1844. The two countries continued arguing over the border, though, and Rafael Trujillo, during his 30-year dictatorship as President, made it a priority of his foreign policy to stop the migration of Haitians into Dominican territory. When the border treaty didn’t do the job, he ordered his military officials in 1937 to kill all Haitians living in the Dominican Republic. Between 20,000 and 30,000 Haitian migrants were murdered.
Now, close to a million Haitians live in the Dominican Republic and face ongoing discrimination, both institutional and personal. A Dominican man who saw my travel guidebook Dominican Republic & Haiti, was outraged that the two countries were written about in one book. “Trujillo did not kill enough Haitians,” he said referring to the 1937 massacre.
Haitians continue migrating here because of larger institutional forces. They meet the labor demands of builders, miners and farmers, who are only willing to pay low wages—much like Mexican and other immigrant labor in the United States who meet the needs of American business owners.
Given the history and reality of racism in the Dominican Republic, why this sudden surge of solidarity? The refrain heard at NGO meetings and on the street: “They have been left with nothing.”
“When you see images of someone who has lost everything, you only see their humanity,” said one college student in Santo Domingo.
But there was little unity and cooperation during the 2008 hurricane season, when five tropical storms and hurricanes caused severe damage on both sides of the border. Some Dominicans explained that both countries had to pick up the pieces in their own territories after those hurricanes. Other Dominicans answered that they are uniting to help now because “It could have been us. We felt the tremor.” All agree that this earthquake caused the most devastating destruction they have seen in their lifetime.
“In times of crisis, you see who people really are in their response,” said a Dominican employee at the Canadian embassy. He, like many other Dominicans, has worked day and night since the earthquake hit to offer assistance.
It’s hard to imagine, however, that one earthquake, even one this devastating, has wiped out a hundred years of racial hatred, that Dominicans will no longer utter anti-Haitian remarks and that they will consider the commonalities they share with Haitians once the crisis is over.
There are also practical matters. The Dominican Republic is plagued by its own scarcity of resources. While the Dominican government is assisting Haiti with three generators, sectors of Santo Domingo spent the morning recently without electricity. (This article was written using an inverter powered by car batteries.) It seems likely that sooner rather than later Dominicans will be calling on their government to redirect resources back home.
And so, the real test of what has changed in the Dominican Republic will come when the worst of the crisis is over and the international spotlight is no longer on Haiti. Then Dominicans may discover that it shouldn’t take a tragedy to get past what separates us.